<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Scarlet Dance of Delight by Scythe_of_Starlight</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843763">Scarlet Dance of Delight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scythe_of_Starlight/pseuds/Scythe_of_Starlight'>Scythe_of_Starlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Parents, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Gore, Horror, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Murder, Murder Mystery, Partying, Violence, Weapons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:26:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,965</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843763</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scythe_of_Starlight/pseuds/Scythe_of_Starlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Statement of Eden Mallin, regarding the worst party he's ever been to and the subsequent murder of his then-girlfriend, Alvina Fishmane. Statement given July 16th, 2019.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Scarlet Dance of Delight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Been a minute! I made this Fan Statement a while ago after challenging myself to write a Statement based off a song.<br/>I closed my eyes, clicked a random song, listened to it, and wrote this! It's my first real attempt at gore too, so I hope it went well!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Statement of Eden Mallin, regarding the worst party he's ever been to and the subsequent murder of his then-girlfriend, Alvina Fishmane. Statement given July 16th, 2019.</p><p> </p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>Let me get one very important thing straightened out with you before I really get into it, alright? I didn't do it. It wasn't me. No matter how many police officers or detectives come knocking on your Institute's doors asking to know if I revealed any damning evidence, psychotic ramblings, or confessions of my guilt, you need to let them know that they aren't the only ones looking into what happened to us on that absurdly long night. Sure okay, I never knew the others but dammit I loved her. </p><p> </p><p>She was my everything, we rarely ever saw eye-to-eye on most topics and had lifestyles as polar opposite as the sun and moon but… that's how we got along. She - the hyper extraverted, up-and-coming makeup artist with a talent for striking up conversations with her clients who’s lived in London all her life, working at CultBeauty on 46 Colebrook Row, the makeup store with possibly the worst possible name for one, I’m sure. And then there’s me - an admittedly more closed-off and introverted photographer with a writing sidegig who’d just moved over from America a little more than a year ago. I work at the Whitley Library on 252 Northumberland Avenue, for reference on how far apart our worlds were. That's why we loved each other, you know? Who would want to marry a mirror image other than a raging narcissist? But I digress, more on ‘mirror images’ later.</p><p><br/>
I’m not gonna recount our lives from birth onward, but I will tell you this: we first met online back in 2015, she was apparently a fan of my book series and found my little photography blog after I was commissioned by a local digital fashion magazine. All this embarrassed me a bit and soon she started following me and we talked through DMs. Over the years we became friends, with it turning into a long distance type thing. Eventually - with her encouragement and financial support - I decided to move entire countries to do more with my photography, be closer to her, and get even further from my Mom, I'll admit.</p><p> </p><p>Alvina Fishmane - Vina for short, Fishy if you wanted to tease her - was huge in the nightlife scene, as expected I guess, being such a skilled makeup artist that she’s done work for some celebrities - damned if I can remember their names though. Another one of the million things we’d converse ourselves senseless over was the topic of when to go out on proper dates. I’d always been fine with crashing at one of our places for the weekends and watching anything that wasn’t the news (seriously we could argue for days about politics), but Vina’d either want to go on extravagant candlelit excursions complete with a view of the full moon and rose petals raining from the sky, or she’d want to invite me to a freaking party. Hell, Vina may have loved them more than anyone else I knew back in the States, but my thing is… I. Hate. Parties. Always have and after <em> that </em> nightmare? Even more, now more than ever, actually.<br/>
<br/>
The main type she tried with were cocktail parties, mostly. She had connections with some guy richer than me who knew this other woman who was friends with some famous so-and-so from such-and-such publication, ending up with them having invited her to attend a party where my admission always being guaranteed, given that she and I were so close. She apparently mentioned me by name every now and then, despite all the times I told her to <em> not </em> do that. Once I tried to convince myself to come along under the excuse that it was a <em> business trip </em> of her’s, but as I was getting dressed to go, she noticed how I was forcing myself and called off the whole thing. We went to Cafe Magnolia instead, just the two of us. That was also the last real date we went on. Because the next time… the next time she invited me to this nightclub called “XOYO” in Cowper. </p><p> </p><p>It was another case where Vina was invited by proxy of some bigshot and their chain of fairweather friends, only with this club, it was one that she apparently frequented before we met, her main draw of going back was actually this DJ she was a fan of. DJ Necro-Fantasy, his stage name was, he supposedly did mixes in the States and was going on tour in England for the next few weeks, though when she asked I confessed that I'd never heard of him.<br/>
<br/>
Now… alright I admit, I originally refused to go out because XOYO just sounded more like a slang term for some junkie’s newest cocaine-laced LSD smoothie invention, and less like a normal club name. Also what kind of DJ wants to have anything related to death in their name, I thought back then… but for the next week or so Vina pestered me forever in the day about <em> XOYO this </em> , <em> Necro-Fantasy that, </em>until it got to the point where the simple thought of going outside just by itself would trigger the faintest flickers of murderous intent to crackle throughout the corners of my chest. Oh… That doesn't sound good.</p><p> </p><p>A-Anyway! It had been what must've been the hundred and tenth time I shot down her invitation when - as we lay together in soft and thickly blanketed bed of my house - that she confessed why she wanted me to go along with her so much. XOYO was just special to her. Vina met so many great people there, forged friendships, established bonds that remained to her dying day, and she just wanted me to share in that fresh new experience with her. A worry of hers was always that I'd isolate myself into a 'friendless void' as she would always say.</p><p> </p><p>So on that crisp early summer dawn, I made the worst mistake I'll ever make… and said that I'd give it some thought, if only out of pity. The image of her radiant smile and that warm hug she gave are going to haunt me for the rest of my life.</p><p> </p><p>On the day it came time to go, I still had a wealth of second guesses and hesitations in my head. Every part of me had gotten cold feet about the whole ordeal, I'd been staring at pictures of the place all week long, with reading through the Yelp reviews becoming something of a habitual pastime to whittle down the minutes on work breaks. I paced around my room so much that my feet actually went numb, I only said that I'd mull it over, so maybe because it wasn't just another 'no' something in me felt obligated to resist disappointing her for the hundredth time. So while I knew what I was getting into - or I thought I did anyway. The plan was simple: go to the club, endure the loud noise and the flashing lights, make Vina happy, feign a sickness, get the hell out of there, go back home and nurse the assured migraine I'd no doubt have for the next few days. At the very least, I had a sequence of events to follow through on, and that's what convinced me to actually get dressed. I headed out after texting Vina that I would be going after all.</p><p> </p><p>You know, England overall is a lot smaller than America. Sounds like the most obvious thing in the world but, as someone who never travelled out this far before it never really sunk in like it did on my way to XOYO. Barely a ride on one of your weird double decker busses and I was already in the vicinity. Though in the year I'd been living here the only streets I really recognized were the ones that took me to work, Vina's house, to her job, and my own house. I still can't tell you where I ended up <em> exactly </em> after stepping off that bus, so maybe this is where all my problems actually started. It felt like an avenue of sorts, but my mental map that I had just for this occasion told me that where I ended up was <em> not </em> where I should've been. But regardless, I started walking.</p><p> </p><p>On and on down some unfamiliar strip of sidewalk surrounded by unfamiliar people. I swear I must've been walking for hours, and somewhere during that time I took my phone out to check the time, but seems to have momentarily broken, as the home screen wouldn't turn on about half the times I nervously spammed the power button. Over and over I was only greeted by the reflected image of my own anxious face from the other side of the unlit screen. Even when I was sure that I would normally be exhausted, I wasn't. I just kept walking down that same street and eventually realized something. No one else was moving. For all the pedestrians and vehicles, each one were frozen in time. A child got stuck mid-yawn, a couple were frozen mid-embrace, someone else had been walking their dog and they both got stuck at the same place. It was only that my continuous movement made it seem like they were still living people and not just segmented frames from a looping strip of film. Anxious though I was, it didn't scare me. Honestly, the worst thing to me was still the XOYO party itself. No amount of half-functional cell phone service or repeating streets were gonna wipe my destination from mind.</p><p> </p><p>Out of pure habit at that point, I brought out my phone and looked into my darkened reflection as a means to see something familiar and knowable. Weird as it is to say now, my reflection actually felt like something of an anchor. A tangible thing to keep myself grounded. And by the time I started hearing the faintest sound of music at the street's loopback point at the intersection, I saw that my reflection had smiled and "walked" over in the direction of the source. That scared me.</p><p> </p><p>After what felt like an eternity, I somehow managed to make it to XOYO in a timely fashion. But given how the place actually opened at 10 PM sharp… there shouldn't have been a single sound resonating out from the place, no matter how muffled it was at the moment. The red neon sign displaying its name shouldn't have been so shining so brightly. But at the time, I just assumed that Sir DJ Necro-Fantasy was a big enough deal for the owners to reconfigure their opening hours to host a special event. That sounds like something a nightclub would do for a VIP performer right? </p><p> </p><p>There, in front of those pitch black double doors I stood with the evident bouncer of the place, suddenly too shy to speak without a stutter, I reached for my wallet and got my drivers license as proof of identity. The tall and muscular man loomed and gave my licence a once over then scanned through the clipboard he held in hand, which must've had the list of reserved guests. After a few seconds of page-flipping he gave a satisfied nod and kindly held the door open for me without a word. </p><p> </p><p>I could've excused myself, turned around, and walked away. Maybe I could've told Vina that the place was closed for an emergency or something… thoughts like those swirled in my head with every step I took directed me a little bit deeper into the main hall. For a split second I was certain that the world was gonna start repeating again, leaving me to wander deeper into the darkness with the reverbing bass of a song that was set way, way, too loudly… forever. But having lost myself in thought for the moment, I only ended up running into the next pair of closed doors. I swore I felt my phone vibrate with laughter as I stood there clutching my face. With a jolt I clicked my phone's lock screen on, it showed 8:48 PM.</p><p> </p><p>So in the next moment, there I was: sitting on a chair for the table furthest from the dance floor, having myself encased in shadow and watching on as the miscellaneous drunk and drugged up strangers attempt to dance without tripping over someone else's foot, or without going blind from all the obscenely bright strobe lights that flickered into different shades of neon eye strain faster than a human's visual processing powers could comprehend. The bass from the “music” was loud enough to send mini shockwaves through the floor and myself, making it seem like I was shivering to a rhythm. God only knows what kind of song was actually playing - let alone the genre or actual artists’ name - all I knew was that my headache was getting worse per second and the throbbing in my temples could only be cured by getting up and walking the hell out of this tiny slice of Hell. </p><p> </p><p>After another minute of waiting I couldn't take anymore of the ceaseless pounding and quickly went into my jacket coat to pull out my bottle of Advil I keep handy, I popped two pills for good measure, and downed them without an ounce of water. Through a sigh, I could just barely make out the dreaded sound of a flood of more people walking past with their conversations blurring into noise. I could feel that someone was approaching me. It was a young woman with long hair in red party dress that'd been decorated with shimmering glitter, upon another flurry of blinks, I realized that it was none other than my Vina who looked over-the-moon that I actually showed up. She needed to repeat herself three times for me to hear her voice under the blaring noise.</p><p> </p><p>It turns out that I'd come to the party earlier than her! For so much longer than she did, I had to endure this bass-boosted seizure pit that's practically full to bursting with drunk twenty-somethings mindlessly convulsing like rabies infected animals, and she - who somehow found enjoyment to be had in these kinds of cesspools - actually had shown up on schedule, happily brandishing her brightly colored screen, it showed 10:06 PM. I tried to look at my phone's watch but I figured that it must've been broken, as it still showed that it was 8:48 PM, the exact time I walked through those doors, still too early for the official opening.</p><p> </p><p>But I wasn't about to get up and walk away in the face of my girlfriend’s giddiness, contrary to popular belief I'm not <em> that </em> much of a prick, so I merely heaved a sigh and motioned to her to go out and do whatever she wanted by herself. She should be glad that I somehow decided to even show up, I thought, expecting me to participate in this nonsense was out of the question. Yet it took me shoving off her grasp a few more times for her to get the hint, “C'mon it'll be fun!” “Just dance with me for one song!” “You might end up liking this!” I just barely managed to hear her say such things, even though she knew better than anyone on how much I hate parties. Unexpectedly, she didn't seem too shaken up at my stubborn refusal, Vina was the similarity stubborn type who wouldn't mind literally dragging a person into something they didn't want to be involved in, so her little shrug and subsequent merry stride over to the technicolor dance floor seemed… quite unlike her, she would normally consider this as a defeat and she hates losing more than anything. </p><p> </p><p>An unsettled flicker went off in my chest as the chipper young woman disappeared into the swaying crowd of partygoers, I soon lost visual on her polished red heels when she weaved into the maze of people and… I don't know. Ever so slightly things felt a bit… worse. The music sounded a little more ear-piercing, the lights a little more blinding, the place itself a little more crowded, everything seemed to slow down and stall like a lagging Internet connection. That annoyed me to the core. It's like my only true connection had just severed itself and left me stranded in an alien environment. Without her next to me, I suddenly felt like I… started hating her a little. </p><p> </p><p>Maybe someone was having a cigarette a bit too close to my table, I wanted to think, as the smoke can do <em> funny things </em> to my head and there was more than enough wispy trails of the stuff dancing through the stuffy air in their own right for that to have seemed at the very least <em> possible </em> at the time. </p><p> </p><p>The world had begun creeping in and out of total rainbow vomit for every piling second that I couldn't find Vina. To play off the rising anger that could feel starting to bubble up inside I hurriedly snatched my phone off the polished circle table and began shifting through anything on my home screen to distract myself. The clock was still broken, still showing 8:48 PM, even after I knew it must've been later than that. The clock’s issue gave the excuse I needed to ignore the off-kilter world around me. I opened the Settings menu, scrolled down to the Date and Time section, and tried to readjust to the proper time. But...everything was greyed out. No matter how frantic my screen pressing or how hard I'd flung the page up or downward, the clock was still stuck at 8:48 PM, in fact: all clocks were. The one closest to me on the right hand wall of deep red paint was an analog with no need for Wi-Fi assistance, and still it showed 8:48 PM. </p><p> </p><p>Nervously glancing at anyone with a phone light in their faces, the punk rock looking young man to my left asked what seemed to be his sleazy girlfriend with pink-and-purple dye in her hair about his broken phone clock as well. From what I could gather, his stopped at 7:32 PM, the approximate time they both showed up together, to him, the wall clock displayed the same. </p><p> </p><p>At the confirmation that I wasn't going insane, everything I hated about this environment flooded inward to assault my senses. I'd resolved to get up and walk out regardless of my girlfriend's feelings when the famed DJ Necro-Fantasy made an announcement over the booming set of speakers. I couldn't see him at all from how far away I was but from his voice he must've been about late twenties, or at least very good at sounding so youthful.</p><p> </p><p>“Tonight everyone,” I vividly heard him start, “I come bearing a very special song for my favorite audience in the world!” In his preface, the aforementioned audience gave an uproarious round of applause with numerous hoots and hollers interwoven throughout. I could just imagine my Vina excitedly bouncing on her heels, clapping like a seal right along with the rest of them. A knot twisted itself into my stomach. Then DJ Necro-Fantasy went on to loudly explain to those circus rejects - and to me by proxy - about how he made the upcoming song for “us” and wanted to celebrate it's completion with a game, then asked if that sounded like<em> “fun” </em>. Another round of deafening applause practically shook the room itself, screams lit the air on fire with their shrill chorus, while I gave a drowned out “Hell no,” even if no one could hear it, it's the thought that counted. </p><p> </p><p>Just then I swore I felt someone's eyes lock onto me until I pretended to look through my phone to escape the feeling, to which it immediately lifted. </p><p> </p><p>“Alrighty, here's how it's gonna go down,” he didn't miss a beat as my heart started to pound with irritation. He went on about how the rules were simple: he'd play the song, we had to dance to it, and at the end he would handpick the winner to grant this special song a name. I just managed to hold my hands over my ears before the loudest crowd of gawking strangers started screaming at full strength… through gritted teeth I let slip what was already obvious: <b> <em>“I hate parties.”</em> </b></p><p> </p><p>Again I felt someone's pair of eyes begin to drill holes into my skull, scanning through the excited mesh of people directly to my right, no one was looking at me. Not the woman with wrinkles and too much makeup, not the man who's clearly had too much to drink, not that person in the gaudy-as-hell sparkling gold necklaces and black coat, and certainly not my girlfriend in her flowing red dress and rose in her hair - who I literally couldn't see as she was too deep in the crowd… no amount of fake-phone scrolling could let me escape it this time. So I chose to do something at least semi-real and browse through my photos for a bit, the warm light of the breathtaking sunset photo I'd taken back home and set as my background was already helping take my mind off the paranoia just like it always had. </p><p> </p><p>In the background of the real world, the audience began to settle down as the DJ had some minor technical difficulties with the configuration of his laptop’s connection with the speakers, but by the time I stopped stalling and pressed the icon of my photo gallery, it'd been fixed with a relieved apology from the man behind the microphone. Then this very special song began to ring out with such startling clarity that I could've sworn that he'd brought a legitimate band on stage.</p><p> </p><p>I'm no music expert but from what I could tell, it'd been a blend of Electro-Swing, Jazz, and Eurohouse/Trance or something like that. Like some ripped straight from 1940’s America and placed here in some Techno nightclub in the depths of a city. It started slow - almost methodical - as if the music were gauging the reaction of partygoers just the same as <em> they </em> were to <em> it </em>. And even through the slowness, the accompanying piano on the side acted in place of the drums that hadn't shown up yet and kept a quick enough pace that kept anyone listening from starting a slow waltz with their nearest partner. I can't exactly think of the right words for it but the initial reaction of the audience was one of overall acceptance, with a good number that could glance at beginning to bob their heads and swing their hips to the soft rhythm, while a minority of others found that it wasn't necessarily to their tastes. </p><p> </p><p>Even now, I still felt like I'd been watched and tried to hold back a shudder as I shook my phone in annoyance at how unusually long it was taking to load. The Wi-Fi in this place must've been garbage, I figured from the DJ’s momentary issues and my broken clock, I ignored the way the world was looping in the street as a panicked hallucination, as I get those sometimes. It was right on time for the synthetic snare drum to ease it's way into the foreground with the saxophone and trumpet score that my photo gallery’s menu finally graced my screen, to show something that made me flinch hard in my seat.</p><p> </p><p>It was a photo of me, sitting in that exact seat of the table at the back of the club. From full-screening the image, it was clearly taken at a close enough range to even see my boredom as I turned my attention to the wall and refused to pay anyone the light of day, with that unhappy expression Vina liked to tease me over. I stared long at that picture, wondering just how it was taken. </p><p> </p><p>I'm not the type to go taking stupid selfies while out on trips, for this to be in my gallery I would've had to download it from the photographer, and I sure as hell didn't lend my phone out to anyone for them to have taken this without my permission! The logic just didn't make sense, no matter how you look at it, the existence of this picture just <em> doesn't make sense! </em>Tapping once I chose to check the date only to discover that this was “taken” at 8:48 PM. Every attempt to delete it was met with an error I'd never seen before, the screenshot should be good enough but for the sake of providing detail I'll add it here too, in all caps it read: ERROR. THIS PICTURE IS UNFIT FOR DELETION. ERROR.</p><p> </p><p>Just the thought of that is making me feel sick… but back to the party. I absolutely began trembling in my seat, looking around with wide eyes for anyone that could've taken it, despite knowing damn well the impossibility of that notion, I just wanted to make myself feel better, you know? Go through the motions and whatnot! All around now were people that seemed to really hit it off with the song's faster tempo, I even spotted Vina doing a cute little jig from in between the gaps of the dance floor’s patrons. With the saxophone front and center, the more electronic synth elements came easing in to replace what had been there before, it seemed to work surprisingly well for the rather haphazard genre mixing Mr. Necro-Fantasy supposedly did to make it. The mood of the room was lightening as I truly started to panic and began swiping away from the first impossible picture to the next, and the next, and the next one after that… </p><p> </p><p>There I was, sitting in that chair, at that very table, caught in the middle of doing things I'd already done. Holding my head in my hands. Taking out a bottle of Advil. Grimacing at the environment. There was my girlfriend. Ignoring her attempts to drag me out of my seat. Watching her walk away. There was a new picture for everything that had happened and they were all dated July 12th, 8:48 PM. My face had begun breaking out in an ice cold sweat, the droplets of which were falling onto my phone screen and table as my hands trembled hard enough to send it clattering on the table. It had swiped over in my failed attempt to catch it and… there on the waterproof screen…</p><p> </p><p>…was a picture of me with perfectly rigid posture, wearing a “smile” that my real face can't replicate, blankly staring into the nonexistent lens of the camera that had taken this. There laid a kitchen knife on the table, and I was pointing out to what must've been the dance floor. The lights were different colors, and through the tears I could make out the red carpet that didn't exist in reality. Meanwhile the music had gotten even more intense with those who liked it now dancing like we'd been traveled back in time, and those who didn't like it being completely indistinguishable from the aforementioned, the song must've reached the first chorus with it's uninterpretable vocals of word snippets that had been spliced together from different era-appropriate songs. It was at this moment that I really noticed that my body had begun moving on its own. You have to understand, I hate parties! I'd never join in on my own volition! My foot just started tapping <em> on it's own! </em></p><p> </p><p><em> Tap, tap, tap, tap… </em> I couldn't control it, to the beat, my foot just kept tapping right along. Trust me, no matter how hard I gripped my leg at the knee and pushed it down to the floor, it wouldn't do as I say and stop it. The more I tried to resist whatever was making me go along with that nameless song, the more parts of me vehemently disobeyed my brain’s commands. The index finger that relaxed from the fist I made on the table began tapping to the snare drum, my head started bobbing in tune with the beats in the still-going chorus, even my very heartbeat seemed to tempt me into joining those on the vibrant tile colors who danced along like they were invited to the mansion of Jay Gatsby.</p><p> </p><p>They all wore such genuine smiles, some even laughed out loud at nothing in particular. Just the sheer reckless joy and happiness that side of the room emanated almost made the sky twinkle with vintage flakes of Deco flair. I knew it to be a lie, but… maybe just for tonight would be alright? One by one, the tiles on the dance floor changed to reflect that bygone era: bright gold, pure whites, jet blacks. The strobes from up above turned into shimmering spotlights that shot about the club, reflecting glares bouncing off the shiny surface of the bar and the bottles, whizzed past the glittering wallpaper of patterned crimson, and finally settled directly onto me: the guy who hates parties. There was a break in the music, and all went frighteningly still. Like time had frozen solid. All it needed was a frame.</p><p> </p><p>My phone was still on the table, I cautiously looked over to the screen and there was a brand new impossible picture. Me, in a white long sleeve shirt and tie with black dress-pants, not unlike some things I actually have in my closet, in the depths of some forest in the dead of night with a dirty shovel in hand. I was hunched over and rearranging what looked to be a… smashed box? - in the fairly deep hole I'd dug. The camera angle this time seemed to be from someone who'd been hiding in the bushes, spying on me. The time and date for once were different, they read: July 16th, 10:42 PM. At the time, that would've been four days in the future. As of right now, that's tonight.</p><p> </p><p>The momentary silence was broken with the abruptly loud ringing of my phone, someone was calling me now, in this disturbingly abnormal situation...my veins ran cold with dread as I didn't want to know what horrors would happen if I'd just declined the call or let the ringing die. No number, ID unknown, I swiped the green phone icon and held the device to my head with shaking hands. I'd only managed a measly “Hello…?” before the grainy filter on the other end eased off on the white noise and into something comprehensive: the nameless song. As clear as it could possibly be, like a live performance were taking place directly in my head and were being transmitted out into the room instead. </p><p> </p><p>There, beneath the piano, saxophone, trumpets, violin, synth accompaniment, electronic elements and drums… I could hear something else. Very, very, softly in the farthest part of the background was a flute, screechy and ear-piercing, more like an irritating dial tone than anything music related. The squealish cry made the other instruments fade away, until that's all I could hear. My Mother would always berate and beat me whenever I missed a note. The flute sounded exactly like that.</p><p>I couldn't help but ask, “Mom…is that you…?” I could see her from across the darkness of the room, glaring like she always had. I crossed States, I moved countries, I thought I was finally free! And yet… At once I slowly rose from my chair… and began to walk towards her. I'll admit, the only thought in my head was actually very simple, but it's the one I'll never tell anyone about. Not even for your Institute. I don't know where the knife came from.</p><p> </p><p>The next thing I consciously remember is waking up in the middle of the dance floor. For a second I thought that this maddening night were finally over. Then I looked around to discover that...</p><p> </p><p>...everyone was killing each other.</p><p> </p><p>It was a god awful combination between crazed dancing and indiscriminate murder taking place in the club that night, with the amount of different weapons that spilled out from the speakers and ceiling, everyone had their favorites. An older woman to my left had gotten a younger man in the eye with an ice pick, they both let out such inhuman screams that I had trouble parsing it from the musical cacophony. Two twin girls I'd seen arguing before now had each other by their throats, both squeezing and sputtering blood from their mouths and noses. Way over where I was, I could hear the vertebrae in their necks crunching at the sheer death grip they had. </p><p> </p><p>The punk rock guy I mentioned earlier was being bludgeoned by a man who looked even younger than him, metal baseball bat bathing in blood and bits of viscera as it was swung up and down, squelching rang out with every beat of contact it made to his twitching body. That lady with the makeup from earlier too, she was being strangled from behind by someone I couldn't see very well, a too-well-dressed young man tried to go for her wallet after stabbing her in the leg with a Bowie knife, he was two seconds from grabbing her money when another man - maybe a former friend - caught him in the back of the neck with a power drill, it took forever for the drill to come out through the other side and start gushing blood.</p><p> </p><p>All around us was nothing but a mindless, frenzied massacre taking place as far as the eyes could see. I was so caught up in trying to discern who was murdering who when Vina suddenly opened her mouth way too widely to reveal rows upon rows of neatly sharpened teeth, the animalistic hiss that came from her vocal cords managed chilled me to the soul. She bit down into my neck where they all sliced through my skin and flesh, directly hitting into the very structure of my shoulder and collar bones, the elongated <em> knife </em>that was supposed to be her tongue - I assume - squirmed and wriggled its way under a loose flap of skin and clung deep between the muscles. She fell hard on top of me as I hit the unforgiving dance floor, the shifting colors threatened non-epileptic seizures. The pain was worse than any broken bones I'd ever gotten as a kid, much worse than the time I shattered my entire knee cap on a skateboard ramp. </p><p> </p><p>She tore into my shoulder like a shark and my skin flayed like flesh-colored fabric, splitting and releasing pressured shots of blood in a way that should've been totally fatal. I tried to scream in agony and terror. <em> I desperately tried. </em> But interlaced deep within the flaring writhing torment of her vice-like jaw strength, was also an unexplainable ... <em>euphoria</em>? As my eyes rolled back I could perfectly visualize the tingling excitement that shot through my bloodstream like tiny firecrackers while my legs locked around her hips.</p><p> </p><p>Something so absurdly painful as having your girlfriend bite your shoulder to the bone, burst your blood vessels, and is shredding your insides with a razor sharp knife-tongue-thing, yet you end up emitting a noise of ecstatic pleasure? I think that, you know how in hyper-stressful situations people tend to nervously laugh? I heard that it's actually the body's way to rebalance the chemicals in someone's head by forcing dopamine and oxytocin through the brain synapses, triggering this forced and nervous laughter in an unhumorous environment. So maybe with how unbelievably painful it was to get your throat halfway ripped out… maybe my body was just trying to protect me.</p><p> </p><p>A passing woman in a torn black dress stepped on Vina’s neck, causing her to briefly remove herself from my throat and lunged at her too fast for me to process. I was half motionless and bleeding out in earnest, adding to the ocean of red that more and more corpses were contributing to. Everything felt so dim and far away that I honestly thought I'd died. Blurred and unfocused, I could barely feel my numb hands reaching for the nearby chainsaw that was swiveled over from someone's reckless kick. The beating of my heart even drowned out the music… if it even still was music at that point. Yet through the darkened edges of my vision I could hear the sound of someone approaching me with calm and steady - if wet - steps.</p><p> </p><p>Unfazed by the bloody murder at all sides, that hazy figure loomed over me, from what I could tell, it was a smiling young man who looked rather pleased to see me still breathing. Then he spoke, “Don't you just despise parties…? Personally they're not my cup of tea. Too many people. Get me?” and I realized instantly. It was me. Even if it was echoey as hell, that was the voice of another me! He wore my exact clothes and shared my face, but without the bloodstains. On his neck were an oval of patterned rows of diamonds, if I hadn't recognized the scars I've seen in the mirror everyday since this, I'd mistaken them for a tattoo. I - the barely conscious me - gurgled some pleas for help. The ‘Other Me’ chuckled I think, then got closer to kick the chainsaw into my reach, I tried to tell him something but ‘I’ merely waved ‘my’ hand assuringly. “Of course. You can't do anything without me.” And… then he did <em> something </em> and I suddenly got really sleepy. After that was the sound of screaming and…</p><p> </p><p>...I woke up. Standing in the middle of the blood soaked, corpse-laden, completely silent dance floor of the club. The strobe lights had stopped and I was covered in gore, with a semi-busted chainsaw in hand. I was very much alive.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone else was dead. Just a mangled spread of chunky bits and severed body parts that took up the entire club floor. My throat stung a bit, and a small coughing fit made me spit up a tooth. A tooth much sharper than any in my mouth, but I was blanking on who's it could have been. I made a point to show it to the girl at the receptionist desk, and then she ushered me in here to make a statement. The guy I saw before blacking out was gone too. Okay, well, I said everyone else was dead, but that's not true. There was one other living person with me.</p><p>DJ Necro-Fantasy!</p><p>“Bravo, mister,” the young man showed himself from behind the speaker and walked off the side steps of the wide stage, he was about my height and either tanned or the lighting was screwing with my eyes. The purple and black glasses looked absolutely fake but fit his overall aesthetic of the ‘Gothic Horror Disk Jockey’ perfectly. Leather gloves and all. He never once tripped on the mounds of bodies. “That was absolutely brilliant! Congratulations sir, you won single handedly!” He applauded quite cheerfully. I remember his next question like it were asked in the hallway, “Now, what will you name this very special song?” I was a bit too preoccupied with catching my breath after...<b>that </b>to properly answer. So instead, he asked for my name. That I could do.</p><p>“Eden Mallin.”</p><p>He echoed after my raspy utterance then proclaimed “Eden it is!!” In quick succession he brought out a sharpie pen from thin air and scribbled down his number, autographed my still-dripping chainsaw with a wink and a cheeky little thumbs-up. Even handed my phone back to me, told me to contact him, and led me by the hand through the club’s back doors. I was just too dazed to really raise protest or stop him.</p><p> </p><p>Once we were out in the forest, I felt the DJ give me a swift pat on the shoulder when I collapsed against a tree, but when I looked over he’d had disappeared. I took the opportunity to check the time after what felt like an eternal night. It was 5:16 in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>I stumbled down the back alleys and cramped alleyways through the rusted and dirtier areas on the journey back to my house, forgetting the hospital, I just wanted to sleep in my own bed. In the same bloodstained clothes and a freaking chainsaw in hand, but not a single person batted an eye when I started edging toward the denser populated streets. I even passed several police cruisers on that wobbly walk home, panicked of course, hid in some bushes and ran behind some houses, but even as I was using the spare key to my house's backdoor and picking up the package with two bloodied handprints that had been left there, my neighbor with the lights on never noticed anything… </p><p> </p><p>It was after setting the box down with - I guess <em> my </em> chainsaw and crashing half-dead on my couch, that the longest night of my life was finally over. But I couldn't pass out completely without confirming the mystery of my new gallery entries. There on the screen was the final impossible photo that stopped my heart for a legitimate second. It was a selfie of myself in the club, covered in blood and a wide smile of hellishly sharp teeth… the chainsaw was still a whirring blur and slicing through the gore that replaced the carpet. The one on top was the bloodied body of myself.</p><p> </p><p>End of Statement.</p><p>There's... something else written in the corner over here. It says:</p><p>P.S. - To the guy who showed me the way around, thanks! And what song do you have as your ringtone? It's really catchy.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading!!<br/>Even if it seems cliche, it really does mean the world to me that you clicked on this! Sorry about there being no after-Statement investigatory portion, I couldn't think of anything. ^^;</p><p>The song this Statement was based of is Delight by Jamie Berry featuring Octavia Rose!<br/>Thanks again!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>